Bluesky Users Respond With Overwhelming Disgust to Platform’s New AI

 Bluesky Users Respond With Overwhelming Disgust to Platform’s New AI

Futurism · 3 days ago
by Victor Tangermann · Artificial Intelligence


In its early days, Twitter alternative Bluesky tried to paint itself as a safe haven from the onslaught of AI, promising in November 2024 that it had “no intention” of scraping user-generated posts to train AI models.

It was a shot across the bow, clearly aimed at its rival X-formerly-Twitter, which had recently changed its terms of service to allow just that. And since then, backlash to AI slop and relentless AI integrations has grown to new heights.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bluesky’s abrupt foray into AI isn’t sitting well with its notoriously anti-AI user base.

Specifically, the company’s chief innovation officer Jay Graber, who stepped down as CEO earlier this month to focus on “exploring new ideas” at the company, announced a new AI app called Attie at a conference over the weekend.

Attie, which interim CEO Toni Schneider referred to as a “new product” that’s “not part of the Bluesky app” in an interview with TechCrunch, allows users to essentially vibe code their own custom feed using natural language prompts — or even build their own Bluesky app alternative on top of the service’s Atmosphere protocol, an ecosystem of interoperable social applications.

“You control it, you shape it, without having to write code or know how to set up these feeds,” Schneider enthused.

The CEO seemed well aware of the headwinds against launching consumer-facing AI products in 2026.

“It is an AI product, but it’s an AI product that’s very people-focused,” he told TechCrunch. “We think AI is a very powerful technology, but we want to make sure that we use it to build things that really benefit people.”

“We think AI should serve people, not platforms,” Graber told audiences at this weekend’s announcement. “An open protocol puts this power directly in users’ hands.”

However, given the immediate reactions to the new app, it may struggle to catch on.

“Thanks, we’re good, no need to explain it further,” one user replied to Graber after she announced it in a Saturday post.

“Cool!” another added. “How do we block it?”

“Me, looking for who the f*** wants this,” reads the caption of a meme a different user posted, showing a woman standing on a ladder and gazing into the distance.

Graber appeared to be aware of the inflood of hatred for the idea. When a user told her that “we don’t want it,” she replied with a curt: “then don’t use it — it’s a separate app.”

Graber also reshared a post by a different user who claimed people “on the left” were being “shortsighted” by being willfully blind about AI, and that the argument “‘hope it goes away’ doesn’t have a great track record as a strategy for contesting control of new political domains and technologies.” The implication: Bluesky users are wrong about their resentment over AI and should instead embrace it.

Schneider told TechCrunch that the company is still considering how to monetize its latest feature, and that a fee for using Attie, which is currently in private beta, is on the table.

But considering the outrage the app’s announcement has wrought, it’s unclear at best if any serious numbers of users are jumping to use it — even if it’s free, which could turn Attie into an expensive distraction and a largely ineffective way to draw new users in.

Change is inevitable

 

Scuttlebutt Sailing News Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Photographer Cory Silken provides us with a computer monitor calendar for April 2026. Click image to download.

Change is inevitable by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News When it’s time, it’s time, and now is the time. Scuttlebutt is for sale. Since 1997, Scuttlebutt has been providing sailing enthusiasts with their daily download of news, and when you report on the sport for that long, spending each day looking at the activity, you see a lot more than race results. You see the sport changing. But when I assessed the state of the sport in 2020, I was wrong. You can’t stop advancements, so accept it. Raise the bar and let everyone chase it. If they don’t want to, let them play pickleball. Want to make everyone happy? Sell ice cream. Worrying about affordability is futile. Success has always required extra zeros, and boat still stands for ‘bust out another thousand’. Everyone talks about AI in the workplace, but sailing loves technology too. Learning to sail is a barrier to entry… let instruments replace skill. Rather than spending years refining ability, buy gear and people to flatten the curve. You can’t take money to the grave. The America’s Cup, always a source of future trends, is now replacing people. The AC75 Class initially had 11 crew but now has five sailors for the 2027 America’s Cup. Eliminating human error has been the focus, with onboard gadgets instructing when to turn, trim, and pose for the camera. Progress! The pursuit of television ratings at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games for sailing will have new racing formats to emphasize last second theatrics. World Sailing wants College March Madness too. The shift toward high performance boats has removed the "large people" so athletes will now wear bikini tops and bottoms for the women and tight-fitting shorts for the men. Sex sells - beach volleyball can’t have all the skin. Winning championships has changed. After a day of racing, I couldn’t get to the bar fast enough, but now debriefs cut into cocktail time, with GPS instrument data telling me what I did wrong. I don’t need reminding; I need Mount Gay to forget it. For sailing parties, Vakaros is developing a dating app to facilitate relationship starting. No liquid courage needed. Speaking of Vakaros, now that their instruments have turned race starts into a video game, they plan to replace physical marks with virtual marks. If you thought robot marks were the future, think again. No more acrimonious moments at the turns as onboard video and GPS tracking direct traffic, with the yelling now at crew who forgot to charge the battery. Plus, those mark-set volunteers were a lonely bunch. I have been producing Scuttlebutt Saling News for 25 years, and while media competitors have come and gone, one particular website both gave us credit for its existence and became the bane of ours. While I’d argue about keeping your enemies close, its founder has recently been removed and had his membership rescinded from a club we share. Karma is a bitch! Anyway, I’m not sure what I will do without working seven days a week, alone, shackled to a screen with daily deadlines, but I’m open to try. People think I do nothing anyway, and AI will soon assure that. As for today being April 1st, that’s possibly a coincidence.  Or not.

LIV Golf’s future is in doubt

 LIV Golf’s future is in doubt. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is on the verge of pulling its financial support from the league, and an announcement about the kingdom’s decision is coming as soon as today, the Financial Times reports. That would likely spell doom for the league that sought to challenge the PGA by luring away players with massive paydays. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund has invested about $5 billion in the tour, which has racked up more losses since its founding than a player who’s always over par. The FT said no final decision had been made as of yesterday, but the Telegraph reported that the league’s executives had been summoned to an emergency meeting. In an email obtained by ESPN, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told staff that the season would go on “as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” though he did not address reports about the loss of funding or the future beyond this year.

US economy grew a sluggish 0.5% in fourth quarter

US economy grew a sluggish 0.5% in fourth quarter, government says, downgrading previous estimate




Gas prices are displayed at a gasoline station, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
By PAUL WISEMAN
Updated 7:29 AM GMT-7, April 9, 2026
Leer en español

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American economy, slowed by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, grew at a sluggish 0.5% annual pace from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in downgrade of its previous estimate.

U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — decelerated in the fourth quarter after registering impressive growth of 4.4% from July through September and 3.8% from April through June. The latest number was marked down from the Commerce Department’s previous estimate of 0.7% fourth-quarter growth.

Federal government spending and investment fell at a 16.6% annual pace because of the shutdown, lopping 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP growth. Consumer spending expanded 1.9%, down a notch from the previous estimate and from 3.5% in the second quarter. Spending on goods — such as cars and clothing — grew just 0.3%, down from 3% in the July-September period.

For all of 2025, the economy grew 2.1% last year, slower than 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023.

Business investment, excluding housing, increased at a 2.4% pace, likely reflecting money being poured into artificial intelligence, but the increase was down from 3.2% in the third quarter.

 Tesla Goes Ahead and Admits Its Robotaxis Are Sometimes Fully Human-Controlled

Tesla Goes Ahead and Admits Its Robotaxis Are Sometimes Fully Human-Controlled

Waymo takes great pains to never describe its vehicles as giving up autonomy completely. Tesla doesn't seem to care.

BY MIKE PEARLPUBLISHED MARCH 31, 2026, 9:07 PM ET

READING TIME 3 MINUTES

Except it's not entirely robo. © Tim Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images

 COMMENTS (20)

Tesla robotaxis are not necessarily operating without a human in the loop, even its small number of unsupervised robotaxis that lack safety operators. If you’re a self-driving car fan, that reflects a deflating fact of life about the current state of autonomous vehicles: the companies operating them still don’t trust them on the roads without occasional button pushes from a flesh-and-blood human sitting at a desk somewhere.

But Tesla appears to be unique among its competitors when it comes to the extent to which its vehicles occasionally rely on humans. That is to say: they occasionally surrender control to them completely.

Karen Steakley, director of public policy and business development at Tesla, recently divulged this in a letter to Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat representing Massachusetts (as first reported by Wired). Human operators, Steakley wrote, “are authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control as the final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention actions have been exhausted.”

Competitors like Waymo say they allow humans to play a role in the operation of a vehicle on the road, but a more limited one, and they take great pains to make this distinction. Waymo’s description of what went wrong last year when its vehicles seemed to have a widespread meltdown during a blackout in San Francisco touched on this, for instance.

The issue involved a large number of Waymo vehicles encountering four-way stoplights that were blacked out, and sending an unmanageable number of confirmation requests to human workers with Waymo’s “fleet response” division, which we now know is largely based in the Philippines.

According to Waymo’s public relations materials online, rather than, say, “steering” the vehicle remotely, perhaps with a joystick, fleet response workers see camera feeds and 3D representations of the Waymo vehicle’s position within its environment and give feedback. They might simply have to click an answer to a question like Is the street I’m trying to turn onto closed? Or they might suggest a new course of action for getting out of a jam, like pulling into a driveway to let others pass.

They do this in a way that is a bit like telling a unit what to do in a real-time strategy video game, except Waymo insists that the “Waymo Driver”—the hardware and software system that drives the car—can refuse the human suggestion, meaning it never surrenders executive control.

Steakley makes it pretty clear that Tesla lacks Waymo’s compunctions about seizing the car’s autonomy entirely. Tesla employs “remote assistance operators” (RAOs) in Austin, Texas and Palo Alto, California in order to “promptly move a vehicle that may be in a compromising position,” she told Markey in the letter. A human might take “temporary control of the vehicle,” and remotely move it up to 10 miles-per-hour, she explained.

This only happens “if direct access is granted by the Tesla [automated driving system].” Though she also notes that if a rider requests help, they may end up communicating with a Tesla RAO “via bidirectional audio.”

RAOs must also, according to Steakley:

• have a “valid U.S. driver’s license for a minimum of 3 years”
• “maintain a license and clean driving record throughout their employment.”
• “undergo criminal background and Motor Vehicle Record checks”
• “pass a U.S. Department of Transportation drug test”

Markey issued a report Tuesday, after receiving similar letters in response to  questions about remote operation in these vehicles not just from Tesla and Waymo, but also five other competitors. Markey believes the responses reflect a “patchwork of safety practices across the industry, with significant variation in operator qualifications, response times, and overseas staffing, all without any federal standards governing these operations.”

Gizmodo reached out to Tesla and Waymo about these letters, and about Markey’s report. We will update this article if we hear back.

Together, we’ll build a Canada strong for all

 

Together, we’ll build a Canada strong for all, Robert.

After weeks of hard work from our by-election candidates and volunteers, Canadians elected Doly Begum (Scarborough Southwest), Danielle Martin (University–Rosedale), and Tatiana Auguste (Terrebonne) as our newest Liberal MPs! Canadians believe in Mark Carney, our Liberal team, and our plan, and these successful by-election results build on the momentum behind our Liberal team’s work to build Canada strong. Building off the strength of our party at last week’s 2026 Liberal National Convention, our new MPs are ready to bring the voice of their communities to Ottawa. At this decisive moment for our country, Mark Carney and our Liberal government will keep delivering the serious leadership needed to build a stronger, safer, and more prosperous future. Our success in last night’s important by-elections wouldn’t have been possible without the support of donors like you, Robert. Thank you for your support, and we’re looking forward to all that we can continue doing together to deliver for Canadians.

 

Plan your yearlong holiday trip

Jessica Russo for Morning Brew

Holidays are fun, but eventually, the festive celebrations have to end…unless, of course, you go on a yearlong cross-country holiday road trip that your boss will definitely be fine with. First, head to Tallapoosa, Georgia, for its annual Possum Drop, which combines the cleansing power of New Year’s Eve with the systematic lowering of a taxidermied marsupial. Next, hit up New Orleans for Mardi Gras, then, for Valentine’s Day, take in Loveland, Colorado, for the Sweetheart Festival. After that, mosey over to Reno, Nevada, for a mid-March leprechaun-themed bar crawl. When summer starts rolling in, head to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Juneteenth festivities, then work your way north to watch the massive Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. After that, it’s time to visit: Oktoberfest in the Bavarian village of Leavenworth, Washington. The official Halloween Capital of the World: Anoka, Minnesota. Veterans Day Week in Branson, Missouri. Then, it’s off to Chicago for a cold Turkey Trot and Thanksgiving parade, before pulling a reverse Planes, Trains and Automobiles and traveling to New York, where you can visit Santa in the small hamlet of North Pole. While you’re there, be sure to pick up an “I’m Sorry” fruitcake for your boss.

Carney secures majority government with sweep of 3 byelections

Carney secures majority government with sweep of 3 byelections

• Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals have secured a majority government with wins in all three byelections.
• The Liberals were just one seat shy of a majority after five opposition politicians broke ranks to join the ruling party in recent months.
• Candidates Doly Begum in Scarborough Southwest, Danielle Martin in University-Rosedale and Tatiana Auguste in Terrebonne pushed the Liberals past that threshold.
• The wins bring the Liberals up to 174 seats, putting them on more solid ground as they push their agenda through the House of Commons.

The Ski Industry’s Forgotten Coup

Powder Grab: The Ski Industry’s Forgotten Coup

The Lever · 2 hours ago
by John LaConte · Business


Skiing, more than ever before, has become a pastime for the elite. Single-day lift tickets at popular resorts now regularly exceed $300, prices that haven’t fallen even as ski slopes in the West suffer through a historically dry season. That’s likely because many resorts have already locked skiers into season passes costing $1,000 or more up front, regardless of weather conditions.

Two main operators, Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Company, run dozens of resorts nationwide, allowing them to raise prices with impunity. The companies have also consolidated resort-adjacent lodging, food, retail, and transportation into captive-market moneymaking machines that can cost visitors thousands of dollars per day.

Vail Ski Resort in 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Ciaglo)

The resulting mountain destinations have become 21st-century company towns, decimating public lands and punishing employees who complain of profit gouging with not just termination, but banishment from the slopes.

Costs have gotten so bad that it seems like hardly anyone can afford to ski these days. Last week, Vail Resorts announced a drop in skier visits and projected revenue amid the season’s “worst-case weather scenario.” While, as a private company, Alterra doesn’t release its revenue figures, it, too, appears to be struggling; the company’s CEO just abruptly announced he’s stepping down.

What people don’t realize is that this consolidation and profiteering didn’t have to be this way. Most ski resorts operate on vast swaths of public land — massive mountainsides owned by American taxpayers and overseen by federal regulators, at least theoretically.

And the government once nearly intervened, thanks to an all-but-forgotten scandal that triggered public outrage and heated hearings in Washington: In 1975, two Colorado ski resorts wanted to raise ticket prices from $10 to $12.

 

How much longer can tech support the markets?

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

For three years, tech behemoths have been fueling a bull market on the promise that AI advancements will increase efficiency and profitability. But with investors growing skeptical, and with the continued war in the Middle East, the Nasdaq is now in correction territory after its worst week in nearly a year: The index is down 11% since it peaked in October and is doing its best New York Giants impression with 10 weekly losses over the past 11 weeks. Two of the biggest drains since late-October are two of the biggest spenders in AI computing—Microsoft (down 34%) and Meta (down 29%). Even Nvidia, the AI chipmaker that has everyone throwing money at it like it’s in one of those windy cash booths, is down nearly 20% from its October high. As a group, Magnificent Seven shares are down 8% since late October. Microsoft is having its worst quarter since the 2008 global financial crisis. The stock is down 25% as shareholders recoil from the company’s move to continue spending on AI infrastructure. There are also fears that startups like OpenAI and Anthropic will create agents that can replace products made by companies like Microsoft. Tech’s slide is in keeping with the market as a whole. Remember when US Attorney General Pam Bondi let the world know the Dow was over 50,000 at a congressional hearing in February? After dropping nearly 800 points yesterday, it, too, fell into correction territory from its record high on Feb. 11. TACO is growing stale Instead, crude prices soared to $110 per barrel yesterday, stoking inflation fears. This could be because, while Trump backed down, Israel threatened escalation, and Iran has been resistant to peace talks. Analysts believe the TACO tactic is carrying less weight due to the disconnect between the US and Iran. But…Big Tech stocks could be viewed as a relative bargain, and a resurgence would almost certainly translate into good news for the markets overall.

News and insights from The Tyee

“An Alberta Spooned From A Churning Cauldron Of Conspiracy Theories And Right-Wing Fantasies” Marcello Di Cintio didn’t want to write this week’s cover story. Like many of us, he’s grown a little tired of the fixation on Alberta’s wackiest conservative excesses. “I didn’t feel the current separatist tantrum warranted the nation’s attention. Or maybe I was just embarrassed.” Then, he walked into the heart of that tantrum and came away feeling something else. Di Cintio went to two separatist events: an Alberta Independence Rally in Calgary that attracted 3,000 attendees; and “A Christian Perspective on Alberta Independence” session at Fairview Baptist Church that drew about 500. What he heard repeatedly, were bloviations about Ottawa’s tyranny, false Facebook memes reheated into political conspiracies, religious fundamentalism and — most passionately — a hatred towards immigrants. That’s why he wrote this week’s cover story. “I wanted Canadians to understand that Alberta separatism, at its heart, isn’t motivated by equalization policies, Senate seats, carbon taxes or oil. These tired complaints may ride shotgun on independence, but bigotry drives the truck.” The rest of this week is all about Avi. Lewis, that is. The newly elected leader of the federal NDP was barely off the convention floor when he faced a public attack, not from the usual conservative critics, but his Alberta NDP counterpart, Naheed Nenshi. “It is clear that the direction of the federal party under this new leader, someone who openly cheered for the defeat of the Alberta NDP government, is not in the interests of Alberta,” wrote Nenshi in a public statement. David Climenhaga tries to understand why the orange violence. Climenhaga also tucks into the wild bout of red-baiting that Lewis’s coronation incited. Everyone from media pundits to Danielle Smith were casually throwing out the c-word (communist). “To give Alberta Premier Danielle Smith her due, she made me laugh out loud in CTV’s social media clip when she offered this evidence of the federal NDP’s drift toward Socialism with Canadian Characteristics. ‘They want everyone to have a heat pump!’ If that’s not full communism, what the hell is?” Elsewhere... This is all a big mess, but Danielle Smith and her party might have “get out of separatist hell”-free card, writes Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean. They could nullify any referendum this fall by calling for an early election. [Women of ABpoli] What are the odds of that happening? Hell, of any of this separation stuff happening? For that just turn to the offshore gambling sites allowing bets on public policy. As of Tuesday afternoon, online gambling platform Kalshi sets separation at just over 19 per cent. According to CBC, there’s already been $50,634 US wagered on that question. [CBC] Remember the UCP’s efforts to ban certain books from school libraries? Now the government wants to expand its reach to all public libraries. A new bill aims to separate books with visual depictions of sex in all public libraries, putting them behind a counter or in a separate section (presumably behind a beaded curtain) to make sure children under 15 can’t access them. The Coalition of Alberta Public Libraries calls the bill an “act of censorship.” [The Canadian Press] The UCP government is also worried about what kids are able to think about in schools. New legislation could mandate that teachers be impartial and neutral when teaching, something the president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association assures the province is a solution to a non-existent problem. “Teachers are professionals,” Jason Schilling said. “They already teach the prescribed curriculum in a balanced, thoughtful and age-appropriate way. Any suggestion otherwise is unfair and quite frankly offensive to the profession.” [The Canadian Press] Last week we mentioned the boundary commission’s report on redrawing Alberta’s election map. What’s come out since is the “minority report” alternative proposed alongside that commission’s report that goes whole hog on splicing urban ridings with rural areas into new ‘rurban’ ridings. “What might be the minority’s true motivation for this?” the authors of the majority report ask. “Our friends south of the border may have a term for this type of redistricting.” [CBC] Data nerd Kyle Hutton has a more blunt assessment: “A very blatant, very obviously gerrymandered cheater map done by cheats.” Hutton’s analysis says the minority map, if adopted, would greatly increase the number of strong UCP seats. “With the commission majority’s recommended maps, we had 48 UCP vs 41 NDP, 15 of which were highly competitive… Under the UCP commissioner’s proposed boundaries, that would switch to 57 UCP vs 32 NDP, with only 11 competitive ridings.” [Blunt Objects]   Until next time, Jacob Boon, newsletter editor

 

United says, ‘Go ahead, lie down

NurPhoto / Getty Images

It’s a huge day for anyone who is consistently able to stretch their legs out all the way on a flight. United Airlines announced several upgrades to its upcoming fleet of 250 new airplanes, offering more legroom, seats that lie flat, and souped-up amenities…for those willing to upgrade. Over the next two years, United will add a number of flights that cater more heavily toward premium customers: Most new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners will include more premium seats than older airplanes, as well as the previously announced “Polaris Studio”—a private hub that has ottomans for guests visiting your sky-high oasis. These sections also include wine pairings and caviar with meals. The “Coastliner” will also provide lie-flat seats for the first time on transcontinental flights. Next year, you’ll be able to book a Relax Row, transforming three economy seats into a giant bed. It wasn’t all good news: United CEO Scott Kirby warned that ticket prices might have to increase by 20% if jet fuel costs stay up near cruising altitude as a result of the Iran conflict. Big picture: The second-most profitable US carrier joins other airlines in bolstering its premium offerings, hoping to squeeze out more money per seat. United said that premium revenue jumped 11% last year, while basic economy revenue fell 5%.